


what if

by Balthuza



Category: Shards of the Sun
Genre: I'm so so sorry, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-24
Updated: 2017-03-24
Packaged: 2018-10-10 00:58:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 730
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10425699
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Balthuza/pseuds/Balthuza
Summary: His name is Mani and he always smells like grain, heat and adventure.





	

His name is Mani and he always smells like grain, heat and adventure. 

Grifaris meets him outside the pub nearby the temple. He is so drunk he can barely stand, and, since it’s not like Grifaris had any plans, he just shrugs off the half-hearted offers of other trainees to join them and decides to take the idiot home. He gracefully allows the constant stream of drunk pick-up lines and awful flirting to fill their way back towards what he believes is the boy’s home.

Afterwards he lies on his cot and let’s himself get lost in ‘what ifs’ for a moment, then falls asleep with his head full of witty answers and his cheeks hot.

Mani is there the next day. And the next. And the next. 

He asks about Grifaris, who pretends not to exist, and in the end finds him by accident. 

Hidden between the bookshelves Grifaris realizes he doesn’t remember any of his carefully crafted responses, but it’s okay, since Mani leaves the library wheezing, after the librarian throws him out for laughing out loud.

The next day Grifaris hides so well nobody finds him, and he feels so guilty afterwards that after that he welcomes Mani by the gates. 

The human seems obvious to the looks they’re getting, and Grifaris revels in them. 

The next day he is given the order - his very first trip into the Underdark, and he doesn’t see the boy at the temple afterwards.

 

He doesn’t know where he is going to go when he runs away. Anywhere will be better than where he was. When his rations end, he stumbles into an inn, soaked wet and with but a few silvers in his pocket. He doesn’t regret his decision for a second.

The innkeeper is a decent woman with a bad arm and pays him fairly for his work. The callouses on his hands vanish slowly when he trains less, enough to keep him from being restless, a far cry from the constant drill in the temple. When the old miller dies, he is sad, he liked the man. He lights a candle for him in the evening, and wonders whether he will be able to enter Heironeous’ domain after he died. The crack in his amulet is deep and unforgiving under his fingers. 

 

In the end, he meets Mani by accident. The old miller is dead and his children take over the business. 

A crate slips from his fingers and hits him in a foot hard enough to break a bone, and Mani doesn’t know whether to laugh or to cry.

The old lady leaves them the inn when she passes away three years later. It is not a surprise. She talked about it before. Still, when Grifaris closes her eyes and cries into Mani’s shirt, he can’t really help thinking that for all the killing he was trained to do, there is nothing he hates half as much as death.

 

He dismisses the voice in his head that keeps warning him it is too good, too perfect. The tavern is full and loud most of the nights, Mani behind the counter and Grifaris in the back. He can sometimes hear the back and forth between him and people who want to butt it where they are not welcome. Mani treats insults like works of art and Grifaris burned more than one pot, too busy trying not to laugh out loud to keep up with his tasks.

 

In the end, it all crumbles in seconds. He should’ve seen it coming, should’ve seen the blade coming, but he doesn’t and there is no time to do anything. His prayers do nothing, and even if he was well trained years ago, happiness made him soft and dulled his edge. 

There is nothing he can do and in the end there is no one to hold him this time when he closes Mani’s eyes.

 

He digs a grave next to the old lady, and builds a small hill out of stones. 

His hands still bleeding from the rough edges, his head still bleeding from the impact, he walks, and prays, and begs for forgiveness where he expects none.

The second chance he gets is not a mercy.

The third one the Keeper offers is a wonder.

Fourth one would be a miracle, and he does not deserve to even beg for it.


End file.
